Mina stared at the slides under her microscope until her eyes watered, comparing section after section of the samples taken from cities all over the globe. There were patterns there, clear patterns that she had written down in her notebook. She could see a clear progression, from shape to shape and color to color, over time. Unfortunately what she didn't know, what she wouldn't know until they found one of the kidnappers, was what it all meant.
Hands on her shoulders made her jump, spin around. Her eyes flickered scarlet before she saw who it was. "Orlando!" she breathed. "You startled me."
"I noticed." The woman smiled. "You were deep in thought. About what?"
Mina sighed and handed her the notebook she had been jotting down the results of her examinations. "Patterns," she said succinctly. "The patterns in the ages and descriptions of these cells... but I haven't yet been able to find what these patterns mean."
"Perhaps you've been studying too hard?" Orlando suggested with a smile. "Come away from the microscope and apparatus for a little while. The sky is clear, for once, Come take a walk outside with me along the common."
Mina sighed and rubbed her temples. It was true, at least, that she wasn't getting anywhere with staring through lenses all afternoon. "All right. I suppose I could use the fresh air."
"Of course you can." Orlando smiled and took the other woman's arm. "I'm always right. You should know that by now."
The women laughed, and Mina closed and locked her door so that none of the children could get at any of the chemicals within. As they trooped down the stares Mina paused, listening to Marie school a class of perhaps eight in their arithmetic.
"You worry about this orphanage, don't you?"
Mina sighed, nodded, kept walking. "I worry about its association with the League. If it becomes known ... well, any more widely that is... that the orphanage is run by members and former members of the League, or affiliated with it in any way..."
"Someone or some agency might strike at the children in order to hurt the League."
Mina nodded.
Orlando sighed. "Those are the risks you take, Mina. The kind of lives you live, anyone close to you could become a hostage. If it weren't the children, it would be your husband or Henry's wife or ... well, anyone. That's the way it goes."
"True, I suppose. But that doesn't mean I have to appreciate it. Even you are vulnerable, my old friend," and Mina glanced over at Orlando with the barest hint of worry in her eyes. The other woman tucked her arm into Mina's and patted her hand.
"Don't worry about me, darling. I've survived more centuries than even your Dorian."
Mina chuckled.
"So, what were you staring at so hard?"
They descended the stairs, down the small brick path and out through the creaky front gate. The common was damp this afternoon from the rain a few hours earlier, and mist had already sunk over the better part of it. Thus Mina and Orlando were shrouded in a thick and moistened mystery that sent them precariously walking off the path and into the grass.
Mina sighed. "Stained slides... samples of what we think are the kidnappers' skin and hair, taken from sites around the world for the past eight years. If the investigators at the time had had the technology that Nemo has made available to me, they might have discovered something of value to the investigation and stopped it years ago..."
"Or they would have, like you, been wandering around in circles." Orlando hugged her friend to her. "And you say you have discovered patterns?"
Mina nodded. "There are five distinct types of skin tissue, each of them in varying degrees of development. But apart from that I cannot tell ... they appear to be of the same parent stock, but as though they evolved for different traits down different lines."
"Evolved..." Orlando rolled the word around in her mouth, tasting it. "I remember when all life on this world was created by God, and there was no talk of man and apes as cousins. What are traits, in regard to that?"
"A monk named George Mendel performed a series of experiments with plants over fifty years ago. His work has just recently resurfaced within the last decade as being relevant to Mr. Darwin's theories on this human evolution. Something to do with peas and colors in their pods, but the theory seems to be sound."
Orlando blinked.
"We will take Henry as an example, with his ginger hair." Mina sketched the diagram in the air in front of her with her hands. "If he were to marry a woman with the same, their children would also have ginger hair. But if he were to marry a woman who was, say, dark haired, his children would only have a fifty percent chance of ..."
"And does this apply to everything?" Orlando's eyes were narrowed. "Hair color, eye color... skin color, although I imagine we have seen that already in the African slaves the Americans have intermingled with."
Mina nodded. "It seems to."
"Then these samples...?"
"They seem to have... to belong to creatures that are brothers on the taxonomic geneology, but not the same. For example, dogs and wolves are very close kin, but they are not the same. These creatures are close, but they are not identical."
Orlando walked a little ways with Mina, pulling her close as the other woman shivered in the air that wasn't really that cold. "So, then, what is it about these samples that has you fretting over them?" she asked finally.
Mina sighed. "There are other species that are close cousins to the samples I have been studying. Several scientists have passed along samples of rhesus monkeys, as well as chimpanzees and the ourang-outang. But of all the species I have compared them to the closest I have found was human..."
"But why is that worrying? Perhaps it is simply that someone has stolen your Dr. Jekyll's serum, or ..."
Mina shook her head, interrupting her old friend. "I misspoke myself... I should have said. The closest I have found was that of a human being... an ancient human being. The closest relative of the creatures that have taken the children is the Neanderthal."
"Oh."
"Indeed."
-
-
-
Charlotte Pitt had involved herself in nearly every one of her husband's cases in the twenty five years she had been married. Most of the time the involvement was subtle and benign, simply the act of discussing the affair with him over dinner. Other times the involvement had entailed using her family's position and money to gain access to worlds that would have been otherwise closed to her husband. Over twenty five years she had stood beside him through good times and bad, through the terrors of the Ripper murders and the triumph of the defeat of the Inner Circle.
Never had she seen a case as unusual as this.
Her husband, and his friend and associate Tellman, had both been given leave to tell their wives about the unusual natures of the men and woman who would be their co-workers, but no one else. Neither Charlotte nor Gracie had been able to believe it at first, but there was something in their husbands' faces that had told them they must. After the Nautilus had left they had commiserated amongst themselves, and eventually come to the decision that they must visit ... if not the headquarters, as neither of them could find out where it was, then certainly the place where Mycroft was quartered.
An orphanage, of all places. Gracie was dubious, having been intimately familiar with several of them, but Charlotte had heard good things about this institution. Not only from her sister's connections in society but also from a more reliable source... her Great-Aunt Vespasia. Although the woman was old and more frail every year in body, her mind was as sharp as ever, and if Vespasia said the institution was good and run well and compassionately, then Charlotte would take her world for it.
They stood at the door, glancing at each other, shifting nervously. Now that they were here...
"Well, we can't just stand about all day," Gracie said finally, and knocked on the door. There was a moment of silence, and then a small, female voice called down a speaking tube.
"Just a minute..."
They waited, shuffling their feet nervously. Charlotte twisted her shawl around her hands, wondering if perhaps this wasn't one of her husband's cases that was best left alone. Was this orphanage also run by people as ... special... as those whom Thomas was working with? Likely not, or Vespasia would have said something. But then, couldn't they hide their uniqueness from the rest of the world? They must have been able to, or someone would have surely said something before...
The door opened slowly, and as Charlotte and Gracie stepped in they arrived at a small hallway, with no one in sight to have opened the door. They looked at each other, and slowly stepped inside. "It's all right," the voice said again. "Just a minute..."
The door at the end of the hallway, that had been blocked by an iron grate, opened, and a tiny young woman who couldn't have been much older than twenty unlocked and tugged open the grate.
"Sorry..." she said shyly. "It's ... protection."
Charlotte smiled, relieved and disarmed by the presence of the young woman. "Perfectly understandable, given the circumstances." She shook the woman's hand. "My name is Charlotte Pitt..."
"Gracie," the younger woman, still in some odd instances bound by older propriety, bobbed a curtsey which the girl gracefully returned.
"Marie..." she murmured shyly. "Harker. ... er.. You'll be wanting Mina?"
Charlotte nodded slowly, not wanting to put this girl to any more questions. It was as though every word had to be dragged out of her, and even Gracie was wondering what was going on. "If you please..." Charlotte said finally.
The girl... Marie... nodded and seemed to dart upstairs. They could hear the sound of children's voices, but not the occasional patter of feet. Lessons time, then, or at least so Charlotte surmised. Great-Aunt Vespasia had mentioned something about in-house schooling.
The house was incredibly large, and Gracie was even now staring about it with eyes wide in wonder. It seemed as though they had knocked down the walls between two townhouses and built them together... adequate room for the twenty or so children that were living here, and several adults.
"Do you remember how many Thomas said were living here?" Gracie murmured to Charlotte.
"No... why?"
"'cause it seems like there's more than there should be..."
Now that she looked around, Charlotte thought Gracie might be right. There was little evidence, but here and there... more sets of slippers in the hall than there should have been, sized for adults. More books left around than any two people would have had time to read while raising twenty children... more evidence of life and activity than there should have been. Perhaps the reasoning was benign enough, but...
"Mrs. Pitt? Mrs. Tellman?"
The two women looked up. A dark-haired woman dressed somberly was descending the stairs, both looking and them and murmuring directions to Marie, who disappeared around a corner.
"My name is Mina Harker... I believe you will have heard of me?"
This was more like it. Mrs... Miss Harker, Charlotte must remember that she had undergone a divorce... seemed self-assured and competent, much more like a schoolteacher than the mousy little girl who had answered the door. Her handshake was firm but not overly tight, indicating confidence without any need for overcompensation.
"Charlotte Pitt, yes, and this is Gracie."
Mina nodded politely. "Shall we..." she asked without asking, leading them into the library. "I've asked Marie to take over the lessons for the day, so I'm at your disposal for any questions you may have... I assume you're here concerning the investigation?"
Charlotte and Gracie blinked. Miss Harker was the most direct woman they had encountered in a long time.
"Over the years I have made if a habit to involve myself in my husband's cases," Charlotte began, deciding abruptly that frankness and honesty deserved frankness in return. "Although I realize that the ... unusual nature... of this case and its investigators mean that I may not be as useful as I usually can be, I thought that I would offer my services..." she trailed off, realizing how arrogant she sounded and feeling utterly out of her depth.
Gracie was bound by no such feelings. "We figure, even if you've got all the help you can handle on that ship of yours, you can use someone to investigate the kids disappearing around here."
Mina looked from one to the other of them long enough that it made them both shift uncomfortably in their seats. Finally she sighed, leaning back in her chair as though suddenly weary. "I want you to know that we appreciate your offer," she started, and Charlotte knew instantly the direction of what the woman was going to say. "And any refusal of help is in no way a slight upon your abilities. But the creatures that we are hunting are... far outside your expertise. And while that may not be enough to deter you, I pray you then to think of what you could say to your husbands in the letters you will write, so that they may have some explanation when they return to London and find you dead, or disappeared."
Charlotte and Gracie turned white as sheets. The woman's eyes seemed to have darkened, and not just from whatever emotions had induced her to say such things. There was something... animal... lurking in the woman. And something much more human, but much more afraid. Perhaps afraid for them, or perhaps afraid for herself, she didn't know.
It was the fear that convinced Charlotte. "Miss Harker, with all due respect, you cannot frighten us away. Your League has recruited our husbands, and we will not stand idly by while they go into danger, nor will we turn from that same danger ourselves."
Mina sighed, defeated. "I had to try," she shrugged, with no rancor or resentment. Then she sat up slightly, becoming more businesslike in an instant. "Truthfully, we are rather full up on the investigation angle at the moment, but I could use your help."
"With what? This orphan farm you're running?" Gracie spoke up before Charlotte could stop her, and the older woman sighed. Even marriage could not still the sharp tongue in Gracie's shrewd head that made even Charlotte look soft-spoken and gentle.
But Mina took no offense. Instead she chuckled. "Hardly a farm, Mrs... Tellman, wasn't it? That police commander. Yes... it's hardly a farm. Henry took the children in when Marie came of age... I was too busy with the League by that time to take care of orphans, and Marie's foster brother Percy wanted more than anything to go to see with the Captain. Henry, on the other hand, had missed the opportunity to raise the children... "
Gracie frowned. "Marie's one of the orphans?"
"No... no. Marie was part of a group of children we rescued many years ago. Percy and Marie are the only two who remained in League custody... I adopted them myself. The rest were sent to live with friends of the League, cousins, those whom we knew would provide them with good homes. It took the better part of a year, and meanwhile all of the children were in League custody..." Mina smiled; it was clearly a happy memory. "Henry was absolutely taken with the idea of running an orphanage, but at the time he couldn't afford to."
Charlotte nodded slowly. "So when Marie came of age..."
"She and Henry both wanted some distance from the... adventures of the League. They started up this orphanage together, pulling children from the streets, from wherever they could find... children who they thought would be particularly accepting of the unusual things that happen in or around the League."
Gracie seemed mollified, if a bit startled. "So, what do you need our help for, then?"
It was almost the wrong thing to ask, Charlotte thought, as Mina's face settled back into that expression of grave solemnity. "Before Henry left with the rest of the league, he said some things... he seemed to believe that the orphanage might soon be under attack."
"Under attack??"
"By the same people or persons who abducted Marie, Percy, and the others in the first place. He... well, part of him..." Mina seemed to be delicately dancing around some sort of topic. Given what she had heard, Charlotte didn't want to examine too closely. Not yet, of course. "...believes that the creatures that abducted them will want their property back."
"But... what do you want us to do about it? Not that we're fainting or delicate at all, but what can two women do..." Gracie objected.
"More than you might think. If there is a crisis, I am well equipped to deal with any intruders, and I have others who are equally prepared. But there will be no one to take care of the children except Marie..."
Charlotte took her meaning instantly. "And Marie is ... not as strong-willed as you would like?"
Mina's eyes hardened. It had been the wrong thing to say, again. "Marie spent the first fourteen years of her life underground, suffering tortures we still do not know and could not possibly imagine. She still lives in daily terror of being returned to that life."
Gracie shuddered, but pressed on. "No disrespect intended, but can she do anything more than scream and stand there like a ..." she searched for a delicate word to say what she was thinking, didn't find one, and just shrugged.
"Marie will take care of Marie. It is the rest of the children that I am worried about. I realize that you might have children of your own... but if you know of someone, anyone, who might be able to care for them and board here until the Nautilus returns in case of an emergency..."
Charlotte seized upon the opportunity. It was the perfect way to find out what was really going on, what was behind this secretive League that seemed to have swallowed both of their husbands. "My children are grown and at university... I would be happy to stay and help."
Mina smiled. It was utterly disarming in its normality, a perfectly calm and sunny expression on a face that had just before been creased into expressions of worry and weariness. "Thank you," she said, and it was heartfelt. "It will be a great weight off my mind...."
She might have said more but for the knocking at the door that sounded frantic, hurried. The three women looked at each other with wide eyes before tearing out of the room and towards the door. Marie was already standing on the upper landing, gesturing children back to their classrooms even as she started to ask what was going on. It was refreshing, Charlotte thought, to be in a house of women (and probably men) who were as ruthlessly practical as she could have wanted.
"What's going on?" Marie called down. They could tell she was trying to keep a brave front for the children. It was equally apparent that panic was overtaking her.
"I'm not sure," Mina said calmly, "But it can't be the ... creatures ... because they wouldn't knock at a door. Go back to the lessons..." She went to a box by the door where Charlotte could now see the speaking tube had led to. There was also a box there, and some sort of contraption with mirrors. She fiddled with it, seemed to look into something... and her eyes widened. "Gordie... what..."
"Gordie...?"
"Mina..." now they could hear the voice, a young man's voice, high and pitiful and terrified. "Mina, it's horrible, it's..."
Mina wrenched all three doors open, dragging a young disheveled looking man in. He practically limped through the hallway into her arms, and at first Charlotte thought the man had been injured in some way... that is, until she saw that his foot had been mangled, twisted into a clubfoot. He looked pale as death, but whether that was his natural complexion or from sheer terror she didn't know.
"What happened... Mrs. Tellman, would you please fetch the brandy... it's in the cupboard underneath the table in the library... Mrs. Pitt, if you would help me..."
Somehow they managed to carry the shivering young man into the kitchen, which seemed a bizarre choice until Charlotte tasted the air and felt the warmth and realized why. It smelled of cinnamon and apples and comforting foods, reminding her of her own kitchen at home. Mina's arms wrapped around the boy as Gracie came pelting in with the brandy.
"Not a full glass, just... yes, that's it."
The young man she had called Gordie took a deep, shuddering breath, and the gulped down the brandy. "Oh god..." he murmured. "Oh god. Mina, they're back. They're all back, dozens of them. Hundreds of them."
Behind them they heard a whimpering, soft noise. Marie stood in the doorway, white as death, as the young man in their arms. She darted forward and knelt down beside him, babbling in some strange language that Charlotte couldn't identify. Mina looked up at the other woman and Charlotte began to understand why they needed her and Gracie. If for nothing else, they needed the stability that women, care-givers with normal lives could provide.
"I'll take care of things here," Mina murmured. "If you would go see to the children."
Gracie nodded and darted upstairs. Charlotte was slower to act, standing back instead and watching the cluster of three comfort each other, like family... almost, she noticed with an atavistic shiver echoing a fear she didn't understand... almost like lovers.
Charlotte went upstairs to mind the children with Gracie. Perhaps the woman had been right... perhaps this was something she didn't want to involve herself in.
Hands on her shoulders made her jump, spin around. Her eyes flickered scarlet before she saw who it was. "Orlando!" she breathed. "You startled me."
"I noticed." The woman smiled. "You were deep in thought. About what?"
Mina sighed and handed her the notebook she had been jotting down the results of her examinations. "Patterns," she said succinctly. "The patterns in the ages and descriptions of these cells... but I haven't yet been able to find what these patterns mean."
"Perhaps you've been studying too hard?" Orlando suggested with a smile. "Come away from the microscope and apparatus for a little while. The sky is clear, for once, Come take a walk outside with me along the common."
Mina sighed and rubbed her temples. It was true, at least, that she wasn't getting anywhere with staring through lenses all afternoon. "All right. I suppose I could use the fresh air."
"Of course you can." Orlando smiled and took the other woman's arm. "I'm always right. You should know that by now."
The women laughed, and Mina closed and locked her door so that none of the children could get at any of the chemicals within. As they trooped down the stares Mina paused, listening to Marie school a class of perhaps eight in their arithmetic.
"You worry about this orphanage, don't you?"
Mina sighed, nodded, kept walking. "I worry about its association with the League. If it becomes known ... well, any more widely that is... that the orphanage is run by members and former members of the League, or affiliated with it in any way..."
"Someone or some agency might strike at the children in order to hurt the League."
Mina nodded.
Orlando sighed. "Those are the risks you take, Mina. The kind of lives you live, anyone close to you could become a hostage. If it weren't the children, it would be your husband or Henry's wife or ... well, anyone. That's the way it goes."
"True, I suppose. But that doesn't mean I have to appreciate it. Even you are vulnerable, my old friend," and Mina glanced over at Orlando with the barest hint of worry in her eyes. The other woman tucked her arm into Mina's and patted her hand.
"Don't worry about me, darling. I've survived more centuries than even your Dorian."
Mina chuckled.
"So, what were you staring at so hard?"
They descended the stairs, down the small brick path and out through the creaky front gate. The common was damp this afternoon from the rain a few hours earlier, and mist had already sunk over the better part of it. Thus Mina and Orlando were shrouded in a thick and moistened mystery that sent them precariously walking off the path and into the grass.
Mina sighed. "Stained slides... samples of what we think are the kidnappers' skin and hair, taken from sites around the world for the past eight years. If the investigators at the time had had the technology that Nemo has made available to me, they might have discovered something of value to the investigation and stopped it years ago..."
"Or they would have, like you, been wandering around in circles." Orlando hugged her friend to her. "And you say you have discovered patterns?"
Mina nodded. "There are five distinct types of skin tissue, each of them in varying degrees of development. But apart from that I cannot tell ... they appear to be of the same parent stock, but as though they evolved for different traits down different lines."
"Evolved..." Orlando rolled the word around in her mouth, tasting it. "I remember when all life on this world was created by God, and there was no talk of man and apes as cousins. What are traits, in regard to that?"
"A monk named George Mendel performed a series of experiments with plants over fifty years ago. His work has just recently resurfaced within the last decade as being relevant to Mr. Darwin's theories on this human evolution. Something to do with peas and colors in their pods, but the theory seems to be sound."
Orlando blinked.
"We will take Henry as an example, with his ginger hair." Mina sketched the diagram in the air in front of her with her hands. "If he were to marry a woman with the same, their children would also have ginger hair. But if he were to marry a woman who was, say, dark haired, his children would only have a fifty percent chance of ..."
"And does this apply to everything?" Orlando's eyes were narrowed. "Hair color, eye color... skin color, although I imagine we have seen that already in the African slaves the Americans have intermingled with."
Mina nodded. "It seems to."
"Then these samples...?"
"They seem to have... to belong to creatures that are brothers on the taxonomic geneology, but not the same. For example, dogs and wolves are very close kin, but they are not the same. These creatures are close, but they are not identical."
Orlando walked a little ways with Mina, pulling her close as the other woman shivered in the air that wasn't really that cold. "So, then, what is it about these samples that has you fretting over them?" she asked finally.
Mina sighed. "There are other species that are close cousins to the samples I have been studying. Several scientists have passed along samples of rhesus monkeys, as well as chimpanzees and the ourang-outang. But of all the species I have compared them to the closest I have found was human..."
"But why is that worrying? Perhaps it is simply that someone has stolen your Dr. Jekyll's serum, or ..."
Mina shook her head, interrupting her old friend. "I misspoke myself... I should have said. The closest I have found was that of a human being... an ancient human being. The closest relative of the creatures that have taken the children is the Neanderthal."
"Oh."
"Indeed."
-
-
-
Charlotte Pitt had involved herself in nearly every one of her husband's cases in the twenty five years she had been married. Most of the time the involvement was subtle and benign, simply the act of discussing the affair with him over dinner. Other times the involvement had entailed using her family's position and money to gain access to worlds that would have been otherwise closed to her husband. Over twenty five years she had stood beside him through good times and bad, through the terrors of the Ripper murders and the triumph of the defeat of the Inner Circle.
Never had she seen a case as unusual as this.
Her husband, and his friend and associate Tellman, had both been given leave to tell their wives about the unusual natures of the men and woman who would be their co-workers, but no one else. Neither Charlotte nor Gracie had been able to believe it at first, but there was something in their husbands' faces that had told them they must. After the Nautilus had left they had commiserated amongst themselves, and eventually come to the decision that they must visit ... if not the headquarters, as neither of them could find out where it was, then certainly the place where Mycroft was quartered.
An orphanage, of all places. Gracie was dubious, having been intimately familiar with several of them, but Charlotte had heard good things about this institution. Not only from her sister's connections in society but also from a more reliable source... her Great-Aunt Vespasia. Although the woman was old and more frail every year in body, her mind was as sharp as ever, and if Vespasia said the institution was good and run well and compassionately, then Charlotte would take her world for it.
They stood at the door, glancing at each other, shifting nervously. Now that they were here...
"Well, we can't just stand about all day," Gracie said finally, and knocked on the door. There was a moment of silence, and then a small, female voice called down a speaking tube.
"Just a minute..."
They waited, shuffling their feet nervously. Charlotte twisted her shawl around her hands, wondering if perhaps this wasn't one of her husband's cases that was best left alone. Was this orphanage also run by people as ... special... as those whom Thomas was working with? Likely not, or Vespasia would have said something. But then, couldn't they hide their uniqueness from the rest of the world? They must have been able to, or someone would have surely said something before...
The door opened slowly, and as Charlotte and Gracie stepped in they arrived at a small hallway, with no one in sight to have opened the door. They looked at each other, and slowly stepped inside. "It's all right," the voice said again. "Just a minute..."
The door at the end of the hallway, that had been blocked by an iron grate, opened, and a tiny young woman who couldn't have been much older than twenty unlocked and tugged open the grate.
"Sorry..." she said shyly. "It's ... protection."
Charlotte smiled, relieved and disarmed by the presence of the young woman. "Perfectly understandable, given the circumstances." She shook the woman's hand. "My name is Charlotte Pitt..."
"Gracie," the younger woman, still in some odd instances bound by older propriety, bobbed a curtsey which the girl gracefully returned.
"Marie..." she murmured shyly. "Harker. ... er.. You'll be wanting Mina?"
Charlotte nodded slowly, not wanting to put this girl to any more questions. It was as though every word had to be dragged out of her, and even Gracie was wondering what was going on. "If you please..." Charlotte said finally.
The girl... Marie... nodded and seemed to dart upstairs. They could hear the sound of children's voices, but not the occasional patter of feet. Lessons time, then, or at least so Charlotte surmised. Great-Aunt Vespasia had mentioned something about in-house schooling.
The house was incredibly large, and Gracie was even now staring about it with eyes wide in wonder. It seemed as though they had knocked down the walls between two townhouses and built them together... adequate room for the twenty or so children that were living here, and several adults.
"Do you remember how many Thomas said were living here?" Gracie murmured to Charlotte.
"No... why?"
"'cause it seems like there's more than there should be..."
Now that she looked around, Charlotte thought Gracie might be right. There was little evidence, but here and there... more sets of slippers in the hall than there should have been, sized for adults. More books left around than any two people would have had time to read while raising twenty children... more evidence of life and activity than there should have been. Perhaps the reasoning was benign enough, but...
"Mrs. Pitt? Mrs. Tellman?"
The two women looked up. A dark-haired woman dressed somberly was descending the stairs, both looking and them and murmuring directions to Marie, who disappeared around a corner.
"My name is Mina Harker... I believe you will have heard of me?"
This was more like it. Mrs... Miss Harker, Charlotte must remember that she had undergone a divorce... seemed self-assured and competent, much more like a schoolteacher than the mousy little girl who had answered the door. Her handshake was firm but not overly tight, indicating confidence without any need for overcompensation.
"Charlotte Pitt, yes, and this is Gracie."
Mina nodded politely. "Shall we..." she asked without asking, leading them into the library. "I've asked Marie to take over the lessons for the day, so I'm at your disposal for any questions you may have... I assume you're here concerning the investigation?"
Charlotte and Gracie blinked. Miss Harker was the most direct woman they had encountered in a long time.
"Over the years I have made if a habit to involve myself in my husband's cases," Charlotte began, deciding abruptly that frankness and honesty deserved frankness in return. "Although I realize that the ... unusual nature... of this case and its investigators mean that I may not be as useful as I usually can be, I thought that I would offer my services..." she trailed off, realizing how arrogant she sounded and feeling utterly out of her depth.
Gracie was bound by no such feelings. "We figure, even if you've got all the help you can handle on that ship of yours, you can use someone to investigate the kids disappearing around here."
Mina looked from one to the other of them long enough that it made them both shift uncomfortably in their seats. Finally she sighed, leaning back in her chair as though suddenly weary. "I want you to know that we appreciate your offer," she started, and Charlotte knew instantly the direction of what the woman was going to say. "And any refusal of help is in no way a slight upon your abilities. But the creatures that we are hunting are... far outside your expertise. And while that may not be enough to deter you, I pray you then to think of what you could say to your husbands in the letters you will write, so that they may have some explanation when they return to London and find you dead, or disappeared."
Charlotte and Gracie turned white as sheets. The woman's eyes seemed to have darkened, and not just from whatever emotions had induced her to say such things. There was something... animal... lurking in the woman. And something much more human, but much more afraid. Perhaps afraid for them, or perhaps afraid for herself, she didn't know.
It was the fear that convinced Charlotte. "Miss Harker, with all due respect, you cannot frighten us away. Your League has recruited our husbands, and we will not stand idly by while they go into danger, nor will we turn from that same danger ourselves."
Mina sighed, defeated. "I had to try," she shrugged, with no rancor or resentment. Then she sat up slightly, becoming more businesslike in an instant. "Truthfully, we are rather full up on the investigation angle at the moment, but I could use your help."
"With what? This orphan farm you're running?" Gracie spoke up before Charlotte could stop her, and the older woman sighed. Even marriage could not still the sharp tongue in Gracie's shrewd head that made even Charlotte look soft-spoken and gentle.
But Mina took no offense. Instead she chuckled. "Hardly a farm, Mrs... Tellman, wasn't it? That police commander. Yes... it's hardly a farm. Henry took the children in when Marie came of age... I was too busy with the League by that time to take care of orphans, and Marie's foster brother Percy wanted more than anything to go to see with the Captain. Henry, on the other hand, had missed the opportunity to raise the children... "
Gracie frowned. "Marie's one of the orphans?"
"No... no. Marie was part of a group of children we rescued many years ago. Percy and Marie are the only two who remained in League custody... I adopted them myself. The rest were sent to live with friends of the League, cousins, those whom we knew would provide them with good homes. It took the better part of a year, and meanwhile all of the children were in League custody..." Mina smiled; it was clearly a happy memory. "Henry was absolutely taken with the idea of running an orphanage, but at the time he couldn't afford to."
Charlotte nodded slowly. "So when Marie came of age..."
"She and Henry both wanted some distance from the... adventures of the League. They started up this orphanage together, pulling children from the streets, from wherever they could find... children who they thought would be particularly accepting of the unusual things that happen in or around the League."
Gracie seemed mollified, if a bit startled. "So, what do you need our help for, then?"
It was almost the wrong thing to ask, Charlotte thought, as Mina's face settled back into that expression of grave solemnity. "Before Henry left with the rest of the league, he said some things... he seemed to believe that the orphanage might soon be under attack."
"Under attack??"
"By the same people or persons who abducted Marie, Percy, and the others in the first place. He... well, part of him..." Mina seemed to be delicately dancing around some sort of topic. Given what she had heard, Charlotte didn't want to examine too closely. Not yet, of course. "...believes that the creatures that abducted them will want their property back."
"But... what do you want us to do about it? Not that we're fainting or delicate at all, but what can two women do..." Gracie objected.
"More than you might think. If there is a crisis, I am well equipped to deal with any intruders, and I have others who are equally prepared. But there will be no one to take care of the children except Marie..."
Charlotte took her meaning instantly. "And Marie is ... not as strong-willed as you would like?"
Mina's eyes hardened. It had been the wrong thing to say, again. "Marie spent the first fourteen years of her life underground, suffering tortures we still do not know and could not possibly imagine. She still lives in daily terror of being returned to that life."
Gracie shuddered, but pressed on. "No disrespect intended, but can she do anything more than scream and stand there like a ..." she searched for a delicate word to say what she was thinking, didn't find one, and just shrugged.
"Marie will take care of Marie. It is the rest of the children that I am worried about. I realize that you might have children of your own... but if you know of someone, anyone, who might be able to care for them and board here until the Nautilus returns in case of an emergency..."
Charlotte seized upon the opportunity. It was the perfect way to find out what was really going on, what was behind this secretive League that seemed to have swallowed both of their husbands. "My children are grown and at university... I would be happy to stay and help."
Mina smiled. It was utterly disarming in its normality, a perfectly calm and sunny expression on a face that had just before been creased into expressions of worry and weariness. "Thank you," she said, and it was heartfelt. "It will be a great weight off my mind...."
She might have said more but for the knocking at the door that sounded frantic, hurried. The three women looked at each other with wide eyes before tearing out of the room and towards the door. Marie was already standing on the upper landing, gesturing children back to their classrooms even as she started to ask what was going on. It was refreshing, Charlotte thought, to be in a house of women (and probably men) who were as ruthlessly practical as she could have wanted.
"What's going on?" Marie called down. They could tell she was trying to keep a brave front for the children. It was equally apparent that panic was overtaking her.
"I'm not sure," Mina said calmly, "But it can't be the ... creatures ... because they wouldn't knock at a door. Go back to the lessons..." She went to a box by the door where Charlotte could now see the speaking tube had led to. There was also a box there, and some sort of contraption with mirrors. She fiddled with it, seemed to look into something... and her eyes widened. "Gordie... what..."
"Gordie...?"
"Mina..." now they could hear the voice, a young man's voice, high and pitiful and terrified. "Mina, it's horrible, it's..."
Mina wrenched all three doors open, dragging a young disheveled looking man in. He practically limped through the hallway into her arms, and at first Charlotte thought the man had been injured in some way... that is, until she saw that his foot had been mangled, twisted into a clubfoot. He looked pale as death, but whether that was his natural complexion or from sheer terror she didn't know.
"What happened... Mrs. Tellman, would you please fetch the brandy... it's in the cupboard underneath the table in the library... Mrs. Pitt, if you would help me..."
Somehow they managed to carry the shivering young man into the kitchen, which seemed a bizarre choice until Charlotte tasted the air and felt the warmth and realized why. It smelled of cinnamon and apples and comforting foods, reminding her of her own kitchen at home. Mina's arms wrapped around the boy as Gracie came pelting in with the brandy.
"Not a full glass, just... yes, that's it."
The young man she had called Gordie took a deep, shuddering breath, and the gulped down the brandy. "Oh god..." he murmured. "Oh god. Mina, they're back. They're all back, dozens of them. Hundreds of them."
Behind them they heard a whimpering, soft noise. Marie stood in the doorway, white as death, as the young man in their arms. She darted forward and knelt down beside him, babbling in some strange language that Charlotte couldn't identify. Mina looked up at the other woman and Charlotte began to understand why they needed her and Gracie. If for nothing else, they needed the stability that women, care-givers with normal lives could provide.
"I'll take care of things here," Mina murmured. "If you would go see to the children."
Gracie nodded and darted upstairs. Charlotte was slower to act, standing back instead and watching the cluster of three comfort each other, like family... almost, she noticed with an atavistic shiver echoing a fear she didn't understand... almost like lovers.
Charlotte went upstairs to mind the children with Gracie. Perhaps the woman had been right... perhaps this was something she didn't want to involve herself in.